The Moses Stone

by James Becker

  'Let's face it,' Bronson said, 'if Baverstock was being accurate, the inscription has to be a code of some sort. Nothing else makes sense.'

  'I agree. Here' – Angela opened her handbag and fished around inside it – 'this is the translation of the Aramaic.'

  Bronson took the single sheet of A4 paper from her and quickly scanned the list of about half a dozen words.

  'I see what you mean,' he said, looking at the text more carefully. 'Did Baverstock think this might be encrypted?'

  'No, but his field of expertise is ancient languages, not ancient codes, and that's something I do know about. The good news is that we're dealing with an object that dates back around two millennia. And that's good because although there are very few known examples of codes and ciphers from that period of history, those that we do know about are very, very simple. The best known was probably the Caesar Cipher, which was allegedly used by Julius Caesar in the first century BC to communicate with his generals. It's a really basic monoalphabetic substitution cipher.'

  Bronson sighed. He knew that Angela had done some research on cryptology as part of a project at the museum. 'Don't forget I'm just a simple copper. You're the one with the brains.'

  Angela laughed. 'Now why don't I quite believe you?' She took a deep breath. 'To use a Caesar Cipher, you write out the message as a plaintext, apply whatever shift you've selected to the alphabet, and then transcribe the enciphered message.'

  Bronson still looked blank, so Angela moved her empty plate to one side and took a piece of paper and ballpoint from her handbag.

  'Let me give you an example. Say your message is "move forward",' she said, writing the words in capital letters on the paper, 'and the shift is left three. You write out the alphabet, then write it out again underneath, but this time you move each letter three places to the left, a socalled left rotation of three. So you'd find "A" directly above "D", "B" above "E" and so on. In this case, the enciphered message "move forward" would read "pryh iruzdug". The obvious problem with this method is that every time a particular letter appears in the plaintext, the same enciphered letter will be in the coded message. So in this example, which is only two words in length, two letters – the "R" and "U" – are repeated, and somebody trying to decrypt the message can use frequency analysis to crack it.'

  She looked hopefully at Bronson, who shook his head. 'Sorry, you'll need to explain that as well.'

  'Right,' Angela said. 'Frequency analysis is a simple method of cracking a basic code. The twelve most common letters in the English language, in order, are "E", "T", "A", "O", "I", "N", "S", "H", "R", "D", "L" and "U". I remember it as two words – "ETAOIN SHRDLU". And you probably already know the most famous example of a Caesar Cipher.'

  'I do?' Bronson looked blank and shook his head. 'Help me out here.'

  '2001,' Angela said, and sat back in her chair. '2001 – A Space Odyssey. The sci-fi film,' she added.

  Bronson frowned, then his expression cleared. 'Got you,' he said. 'The film-makers didn't want to use the acronym "IBM" for the computer on the spaceship, so they came up with the name "HAL", which, if I've understood you correctly, is a Caesar Cipher with a right rotation of one.'

  'Exactly. There's another slightly bizarre example,' Angela said. 'The French "oui" becomes the English "yes" if you apply a left rotation of ten.'

  'Do you think anything like that is probable in this case?'

  'No,' Angela replied, 'and for one very simple reason: we can read the Aramaic words on the tablet. One of the obvious problems with a Caesar Cipher is that every word of the enciphered text is invariably gibberish, which is the biggest clue that the message is encrypted. That definitely isn't the case here.'

  'What about other kinds of ciphers?' Bronson asked.

  'You've got the same problem with all of them. If the individual words are encrypted, they cease to be recognizable as words and end up as collections of letters. The Aramaic words on this tablet' – she tapped the paper in front of Bronson – 'aren't encrypted. But that doesn't mean there isn't some kind of message hidden in the text.'

  'You need to explain that,' he said, 'but wait until we're back on the road.'

  'Just wait in here a second,' Bronson said as they reached the door of the restaurant. 'I want to check there's nobody waiting for us out there. Then I'll bring the car over.'

  Angela watched him walking around the handful of cars parked outside, glancing into each of them, then stepped through the door as Bronson pulled the hire car to a halt just outside.

  'So if the words aren't encrypted, how can there be a message in the text?' he asked, as he pulled out on to the main road.

  'Instead of an alphabetic substitution, you can use word substitution. You choose particular words to mean something completely different. The Islamic terrorist groups have been doing this for quite some time. Instead of saying something like "We will plant the bomb at three this afternoon" they say "We will deliver the fruit at three this afternoon".'

  'So the sentence still makes sense, but the apparent meaning is entirely different to its real meaning,' Bronson said.

  'Exactly. Shortly before the attack on the World Trade Center, the lead terrorist, Mohammed Atta, contacted his controller and passed him a message that made no sense to the American security forces at the time. He used a sentence that included a phrase something like "plate with one stick down, two sticks". With a bit of imagination, you can see that he meant the numbers "9" and "11". He was actually telling his al-Qaeda contact the exact date when the attacks on America were going to take place.'

  'And on this tablet?'

  Angela shook her head in the darkness of the car, the headlamps boring a tunnel of light down the almost empty road in front of them. 'I don't think there's anything like that incorporated in the text, simply because the sentences don't make sense.'

  She paused as she looked through the side window at the clear night sky. Casablanca was now several miles behind them, and away from the light pollution of the city, the stars looked brighter and closer, and far more numerous, than she'd ever seen them. She glanced back at Bronson, glimpsing his strong profile in the faint light cast by the jade-green illumination of the dashboard instruments.

  'But there's one possibility that we haven't even considered,' she said.

  25

  Izzat Zebari waited until after one in the morning, when the lights in the house had been switched off for well over an hour, before he walked across to the double steel gates and lobbed two large raw steaks into the compound beyond. Melting back into the darkness, he heard a low growl and the swift patter of clawed feet as the two guard dogs ran out of their kennels to investigate the intrusion.

  'How long before it works?' Hammad asked, as Zebari slid down into the passenger seat of the car they'd parked in a deserted side-street about a hundred metres away.

  Hammad would deal with any burglar alarms or other electronic devices they encountered at the property. On the floor beside him was a small fabric case that held specialist tools and other equipment. Zebari knew that because Hammad had opened and checked the contents at least six times since they'd returned to the car. They'd cautiously walked down from the hillside just after darkness fell, and had been waiting in the vehicle ever since.

  'Half an hour should do it,' Zebari replied. 'We just have to wait for the drugs to do their work. My chemist friend calculated the dose very carefully.'

  Zebari waited another forty-five minutes before he gave the order to move. They climbed out of the car, easing the doors closed as carefully and quietly as they could, then opened the boot to remove the rest of their equipment. The biggest single item was a collapsible ladder long enough to reach the top of the boundary wall of the property.

  Minutes later, they were crouched beside the wall, their all-black clothing making them almost invisible in the darkness. Swiftly Hammad and Zebari assembled the ladder, quietly slotting the sections together, then rested the base on the ground. The other end of the ladder wa
s padded with cloth, and made no sound as Zebari leant it against the top of the wall.

  'OK, up you go,' Zebari whispered.

  Hammad climbed silently almost to the top, where he carefully examined the wall. He shone a pencil torch in both directions along it, the narrow beam barely visible. Next, he removed a spray can from his fabric bag and depressed the nozzle, aiming the jet at the area directly above the top of the wall, at the point where they would have to climb over it. Then he descended again.

  'No wires or pressure-pads on top of the wall, no infrared sensors and no lasers,' he reported.

  'Excellent,' Zebari muttered. 'They probably just rely on the dogs. Let's go.'

  The two men ascended the ladder and climbed on to the top of the wall to sit with their legs astride it. Then Hammad lifted the ladder up and lowered it to the ground inside the courtyard.

  They descended swiftly, and Zebari jogged round to the front of the house to check that the two dogs were sleeping peacefully. Then they ran together towards the rear of the property.

  In the centre of the back wall of the house was a substantial ancient wooden door, decorated with a random pattern picked out in steel studs and fitted with a massive old lock. Zebari pointed at it, but Hammad shook his head decisively.

  'Possibly alarmed,' he said, and turned his attention to the windows on either side. Like those in many Moroccan houses, these were square and quite small, as a protection against the intense heat of the sun. Hammad stood on tiptoe and used his pencil torch to carefully inspect the frame, checking for wires or contacts that might be linked to an alarm system.

  'There it is,' he muttered. 'A simple break–no-break contact if the window's opened, but there's no sensor on the glass. I'll go in that way so I can open the back door from the inside.'

  He stepped down from the window, took out a roll of sticky tape and plastered several lengths on the centre of the pane, leaving a short length sticking out that he could hold on to. He ran a diamond-tipped glass cutter firmly around the very edge of the glass, as close to the window frame as possible, and then rapped on the edge of the pane with his fist. With a cracking sound, the entire pane of glass shifted inwards and Hammad was able to slide it out of the frame. No alarms sounded.

  He placed the glass against the wall a safe distance away and then, with Zebari's help, he hoisted himself up and wriggled through the frame and into the property. Zebari passed him the fabric bag of tools, and waited.

  Less than three minutes later, having disabled the alarm system, Hammad unlocked the back door of the house and swung it open just wide enough for Zebari to slip inside.

  Zebari led the way down a short corridor, Hammad checking each door carefully for wires or any other sign of an alarm system before opening it, and using a torch to check the rooms. The third door he opened led into a long room with cabinets along all four walls: it looked like an exhibition room in a museum.

  'Show me the picture again,' he muttered, flashing the beam from his pencil torch over the rows of wooden cabinets, their glass fronts reflecting the light around the room.

  Zebari pulled an A4-size colour print from his pocket, unfolded it and passed it over. Dexter had sent him the picture by email the previous evening.

  For a few seconds, Hammad stared at the image on the paper, then nodded and stepped across to the first of the cabinets on his right. Zebari turned left and began his own search.

  Four minutes later, it was clear to both of them that the tablet wasn't on display in any of the cabinets in the room.

  'What now?' Hammad hissed.

  'We keep on looking,' Zebari told him, leading the way out of the room and further down the corridor.

  At the very end was a set of double doors. Zebari opened them and stepped into the room.

  'There,' he breathed, and pointed.

  The room was obviously used for meetings or perhaps social gatherings. Strewn across the floor were roughly twenty large cushions, upon which guests could sit comfortably cross-legged in the traditional Arab fashion. Decorating the plain white walls were a number of rugs and tapestries, evidently old and very valuable. But what had caught Zebari's attention was a single glass-topped cabinet located at one end of the long room.

  The two men hurried across to it and looked down. Inside the cabinet was a clear plastic plinth and beside it a card bearing a colour photograph of a small oblong grey object and a text in Arabic.

  'No tablet,' Hammad whispered.

  Zebari pulled out the photograph again and held it above the display case, flicking the beam of his torch from the image on the paper to that on the card in front of them.

  'No, but I'll take that card anyway. Is there an alarm?' he asked.

  Hammad carefully examined the back and sides of the display case. 'I can't see any wires apart from the power cable for the light.' He pointed at a short fluorescent tube mounted at the rear of the case. Then he turned his attention to the catch that secured the glass top. 'Nothing there either,' he said.

  'Good,' Zebari muttered. He reached down, unclipped the catch and lifted the lid. He gestured to Hammad to support it, then reached into the cabinet.

  'Wait,' Hammad whispered urgently, looking at the back of the cabinet, which was now revealed by the lifted lid. 'I think that's an infra-red sensor.'

  But it was too late. Immediately, security lights flared on around the outside of the property, most of the house lights came on and a siren began to wail.

  'Out the back door,' Zebari ordered, grabbing the card and sliding it into his pocket. 'Run!'

  They pelted down the corridor, wrenched open the back door of the house and ran for the ladder propped against the boundary wall. Zebari reached it first, Hammad right behind him.

  Once on the top of the wall, Zebari grasped the rough stone with both hands and lowered himself as far as he could on the outside of the wall, then let go. He consciously bent his knees as he hit the ground, absorbing the shock of the impact with his legs. He toppled sideways and rolled once, then climbed to his feet, unhurt.

  Then a volley of shots rang out from the other side of the wall.

  From his precarious perch near the top of the ladder, Hammad looked back into the grounds of the property. Three men had appeared, two from around the front of the house and one from the back, and all of them were firing pistols.

  He never stood a chance. Silhouetted in his dark clothing against the sheer white paint of the boundary wall, Hammad was hit almost immediately. He tumbled sideways, screaming with pain as he crashed to the ground.

  Outside the property, Zebari ran for his life, heading for the safety of the car. But even as he did so, he heard more shots echoing from behind him as one of his pursuers reached the top of the ladder and began firing.

  26

  'That's the wrong answer – again,' the tall man with the paralysed face snarled. He stepped forward and delivered a stinging backhand blow to the wounded man who sat directly in front of him, his arms and legs firmly bound to the upright chair, his battered head slumped down onto his chest.

  Amer Hammad was dying, and he knew it. He just wasn't sure whether the tall man would finally lose patience with him and put a bullet through his head, or if he'd die before that from blood loss.

  When the three guards had dragged him back to the house, the first thing they did was call their boss. Then they'd lashed his wrists together and roughly bandaged the gaping wound in his left thigh where the bullet had ripped through the muscles and torn a deep furrow. That had reduced – but hadn't stopped – the bleeding, and Hammad could see a slowly spreading pool of blood on the floor beneath him.

  The interrogation was taking place in a small square building in one corner of the compound. The dark stains that discoloured the flaking concrete floor were mute evidence that the building had been used before, for similar purposes.

  'I'll ask you once more,' the tall man snapped. 'Who were you with, and what were you looking for?'

  Hammad shook his head and sai
d nothing.

  The tall man stared down at him for a long moment, then picked up a length of wood from the floor. One end of it had been sharpened to a point. His captive watched him through half-closed, bruised, bloody and terrified eyes.

  The tall man rested the sharpened end of the wood quite gently on the blood-sodden bandage wrapped around Hammad's thigh and smiled, the paralysed right side of his face barely moving.

  'You probably think I've hurt you enough, my friend, but the truth is I've hardly started. Before I've finished with you, you'll be begging for death.'

  As he spoke, he steadily increased the pressure on the length of wood, twisting and driving the end of it through the bandages and deep into the open wound.

  Blood spurted and Hammad howled, the incredible pain adding a new dimension to his agony.

  'Stop, stop,' he yelled, his voice a blubbering wail. 'Please stop. I'll tell you anything you want to know.'

  'I know you will,' the tall man said, pushing still harder.

  Hammad's head flew back as a flood of pain overwhelmed his senses, and then he slumped forward, unconscious.

  'Put another bandage on his leg,' the tall man ordered, 'then we'll wake him up.'

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, a bucket of cold water and a couple of slaps brought Hammad round. The tall man sat down on a chair in front of him and prodded his captive sharply in the stomach with the sharpened length of wood.

  'Right,' he said, 'start at the beginning, and leave nothing out.'

  27

  'Does this hotel have wi-fi?' Angela asked, pushing her coffee cup towards Bronson and nodding for him to refill it.

  They were sitting at a small table in Bronson's hotel room on the outskirts of Rabat, because he was still concerned about being seen by the wrong people, and breakfasting in his room had seemed a safer option than going down to the hotel dining room. Angela was still wearing her nightdress under the large white dressing gown she'd found in her bedroom next door. It was a gesture of intimacy he appreciated – it showed that she was comfortable enough in his company – but he was frustrated because she'd insisted on sleeping in the adjoining room.